Karl Weinbacher

Karl Weinbacher was a German manager and war criminal who was executed after conviction by a British war tribunal following World War II. He and his boss, Bruno Tesch, were the only businessmen to be executed for their roles in Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust in Western Europe.

Life

Weinbacher worked at Degesch until 1924, and then at Tesch & Stabenow, where he received the position of manager in 1927, and by 1943 was director and deputy executive under owner and chief executive officer Bruno Tesch. Testa manufactured and sold Zyklon B, which was used not only for pest control and disinfestation, but also in the Holocaust in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to murder people. Weinbacher received a commission on all of the company's profits, including the Zyklon B sales.
After the end of World War II, Weinbacher, Tesch and Joachim Drosihn, the firm's first gassing technician, were arrested on 3 September 1945. They were tried by a British military tribunal at the Curiohaus trials in Hamburg from 1–8 March 1946, also called the Testa trial or the Zyklon B trial. In the cases of Weinbacher and Tesch, the court ruled that the prosecution had proven that both of them knew how the SS would use Zyklon B. Tesch and Weinbacher were convicted, while Drosihn was acquitted.
In mitigation, the defense for Weinbacher gave similar arguments as Tesch's lawyer. He also said the responsibility should fall on Tesch, and pleaded with the judges to consider Weinbacher's wife and three children. The judges were unsympathetic, and on 10 March 1946, both men were sentenced to death by hanging.
Tesch and Weinbacher were executed in Hamelin Prison on 16 May 1946.